


The Thing About Remembering

by orphan_account



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Bucky and Jefferson should be a thing, Coffee Shop, Happy Ending, Inspired By Tumblr, One Shot Collection, Sad puppies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-09
Updated: 2014-06-09
Packaged: 2018-02-04 00:39:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1760929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One cursed to forget, another cursed to remember...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The curse

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by this tumblr post: http://clintlovesarrows.tumblr.com/post/88265222837/ianthinus-what-if-bucky-met-jefferson-bucky
> 
> Each chapter is linked but written as a separate one shot.

The coffee shop really was perfectly placed; across from the street where, at 4.15pm every day, without fail, Grace walked by on her way home from school. His Grace... Nursing a cold coffee - no longer warm as it had been when he first arrived - he watched the people of Storybrooke passing by, enjoying their own miserable little lives where happy endings were a myth and no one knew it. He watched them all dream of something better without knowing what better even was. But he didn't pity them. He had enough on his own plate, just waiting for a glimpse of his daughter. 

For a while, that was all that mattered until he realised that in his distraction, he'd made eye contact with another man. Probably about Jefferson's height, this man was bundled into a puffer jacket and sticking out of one of the arms, a metal hand was on show. Really, Jefferson didn't care enough to question the high-tech prosthetic and he didn't actually turn his head when the man pushed through the door, the tinkle of the too-cheery little bell irritating Jefferson to no end. But he did speak.

"You look more lost than I."

The man stopped before the counter, turning to him. Confusion warped his face for a long time as he searched Jefferson for something to recognise and then the place around him with the same pensive ambivalence. 

"Do I know you?" 

"You do now. Jefferson..." The Hatter paused, looking over the man. Everyone in this town, he knew. He knew who was who and what they had done but this man was a blank. "You're not from around here." 

"No. I don't think so."

"Got a name?"

"No." 

Well that was interesting. "Everyone has a name," Jefferson pointed out. 

"Not everyone knows what theirs is," the man with the metal arm returned. "Steve calls me Bucky." 

"Steve?"

"Friend. Mission. Something... I don't remember. I don't remember anything... This curse." 

Now that was more confusing. Bucky wasn't from Storybrooke, Jefferson was sure of that. Whatever he'd been through, he had forgotten. That wasn't a curse. Bucky didn't know the pain of a curse. The pain of knowledge. 

"See, the thing about remembering is... You know exactly what you've lost." 

Jefferson offered a small smile, pain evident in the quirk of his upper lip and the way he his jaw seemed to twitch. It was obvious that smiling was something he didn't do very often, if ever, and that these sad smiles were the only kind he knew. Maybe a manic one from time to time but this... This was his life now, a desperate struggle to go home, to take Grace and go home. Be happy.

 "You know what you've done, the mistakes you've made, the people you've hurt and let down. Forgetting isn't a curse. Remembering is." 

Bucky listened, watching him for a moment and then turned away, ordering the coffee from the elderly lady behind the counter. He didn't ask. Bucky took his cup and sat across from Jefferson and both remained blessed in their silence: Bucky desperate to remember and Jefferson, with his eyes on the girl across the street, desperate to forget. 


	2. Asking why

"Why?" 

It was a question that haunted both Bucky and Jefferson and a question that they frequently asked each other - Bucky more so for Bucky's need for knowledge was never truly quenched. As a man out of his own time, Bucky asked questions to learn of the new world, simple questions like: why isn't the radio plugged in? Why does food get hot when you put it in that metal box in the kitchen? Why did alcohol come in so many new colours?

Only sometimes did Bucky ask a deeper question. It started with:   
 **Why is it so easy for you to believe me?**

On that first meeting in the coffee shop, Bucky had explained to Jefferson what he did know: that he was a soldier, a Howling Commando and that he was known to have given his life to the second war. He told him that he hadn't died, obviously or else he wouldn't be here, and he had told him that after being cryogenically preserved, he'd finally escaped the hold of a terrorist organisation known as HYDRA. And fascinatingly enough, Jefferson had simply nodded and returned with his own tale of Wonderland. Bucky wanted to know how it was that Jefferson could believe what he said when Bucky secretly thought Jefferson insane. At least in that moment - he'd since come to accept the things that Jefferson said about Wonderland, about The Curse. He'd even tried making a hat for him despite knowing that he didn't believe in magic enough to _make it work._

**"Why do you make so many hats?"**

Jefferson had barely looked up when Bucky asked that question. It had been when he first arrived, when he saw the wall lined with black top hats and the equipment to make more. Bucky wasn't an idiot; he'd put two and two together and by the time he got around to asking, Jefferson was stitching the lining into another one, muttering to himself, a frantic, desperate: 'make it work, make it work, no magic in this world, no magic, make it work'. He broke off to answer, just a simple one:

"Because I have to." 

Now and then, Jefferson even had a question for Bucky. Jefferson had this way of asking, of having no lead up and just blurring out the words. It was sudden and it worked. Jefferson once explained to him that it relied on a psychological technique of word association and recall. Bucky learnt to say the first thing he thought of and gradually, it was working. 

"Why did you take Steve to Coney Island?"

"Double date. Wanted him to loosen up."

"Why did you come to Storybrooke?"

"Answers."

"Why do you scream at night?" 

"HYDRA."

"Elaborate?"

"We were prisoners. War prisoners... They chose me, tested their own version of Steve's enhancement serum on me. I didn't know what it was then. I remember the pain, it used to make me bleed. When I cried, blood tears... It was agony." 

By that time, by the time Bucky had managed to say all of that, he was lost in his own mind, too far gone to even realise that Jefferson had made hot chocolate with little marshmallows and put it before him. He was too far gone to realise that The Hatter was holding him and rocking him from side to side. 

This was how it worked and the answer to the question, **why do you stay in Storybrooke?**

Bucky stayed because Jefferson helped. And Jefferson let him stay because, although he wouldn't admit it, he liked never having to feel alone again. 


	3. Happy endings

"Go. It's alright."

The last words that Bucky said to Jefferson were those. Bucky had already known that one day Jefferson wasn't going to need him anymore; having spent so much time with the Hatter, Bucky had begun to believe in happy endings. He'd never admit that he believed but he did - especially in Jefferson's happy ending. He deserved it... but honestly, he hadn't expected it to come so soon. He hadn't expected it to come while Bucky still needed him. 

It was mildly frustrating to come so close to achieving his final breakthrough to have Jefferson walk away; Bucky's curse was not remembering his past. Jefferson had cracked how to help him and Bucky would have been lost without him. He didn't think that he could do it without him. 

"You're going to be okay, Bucky. Trust me." Jefferson gave his shoulder a small squeeze of their built up friendship. "You'll get your happy ending sooner than you think." 

Watching him wrap an arm around the young girl's shoulders and walk away then was hard. He was happy for him of course; all Jefferson had ever wanted was his daughter and now he had her. And the girl looked happy too. Jefferson had Grace and now the two could be happy with their happy ending.  

It felt as though the street was never-ending, almost like for that moment, time stopped once more in Storybrooke and he was bound to watching Jefferson walk away. An endless moment of loneliness, breaking just a small part of his heart. 

"Bucky?" 

Time was moving again. A smile grew on the ex-assassin's face for the voice behind him was one he'd heard many times in dreams as of late, the voice of an old friend. Just before he turned, he caught Jefferson throw a glance over his shoulder and wink at him. And Bucky knew then that this was his doing, that somehow the Hatter had found him, contacted him and made sure that he was here in time to assure that Bucky was never alone. Bucky shook his head fondly, putting his hand to his head as a mock salute. It was all the thanks he could give him. 

Only then did he turn to the man behind him and pull him into a tight embrace - knowing of course that the other super soldier could handle a tight squeeze. 

"About time you showed up, Rogers." 


End file.
